After 24 years, Axel and Blaze are finally picking up the fight where they left off. French developer and publisher DotEmu announced that they’re bringing back Streets of Rage, Sega’s legendary side-scrolling beat-em-up in the form of Streets of Rage 4. Needless to say, 90s kids pretty fucking excited. Check out the trailer below:
Now, if you’ve never heard of Streets of Rage, here’s a rundown:
Released in 1991 for the Sega Genesis, Streets of Rage (known as Bare Knuckle [ベア・ナックル] in Japan), is a trilogy of beat ’em up games developed and published by SEGA. Similar to other games in the same genre (like Final Fight, Golden Axe, and Battletoads), the Streets of Rage franchise is considered a classic 2D beat-em-up, with the last entry in the series, Streets of Rage 3, being released in 1994.
Streets of Rage 4 is going to be a three-studio collaboration, with DotEmu publishing the title, hand-drawn visuals from Lizardcube (the team behind 2017’s Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap), and relative unknowns Guard Crush Games will be on code. Original publisher Sega will not be involved in the project.
Here are some screenshots from the game for you to check out:
The game builds upon the classic trilogy’s gameplay with new mechanics, a new story, and new rounds of dangerous stages. Streets of Rage 4 brings classic gameplay to mind, but looks like it will stand out as entirely original.
In the few seconds of gameplay shown, you can see that the character animations and poses all look extremely close to the originals, which is great. However, only two playable characters have been shown so far – Axel and Blaze, with original trio member Adam missing from the lineup. We can only hope that he’ll be making an appearance.
There have been no platforms or release dates announced for Streets of Rage 4 quite yet, but we honestly can’t wait.
Images courtesy DotEmu, LizardCube, and Guard Crush Games.
